Happy Lost Day! Where Is Claire?

Isn’t Claire’s mom alive? didn’t she visit Jack at Christians funeral? the whole “Claire was your half sister and that baby over there is your nephew and my grandkid even though i don’t know it.” thing.

Just replace “death” with “coma” and it’s fine.
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I don’t think she’s dead (I also doubt “dead”) because while it’s clear Miles communicates with ghosts, it’s never shown that he *sees* them. Maybe getting knocked out put her in a “between” state.
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But what Claire’s deal is, it’s obviously heavily wrapped up in whatever’s going on with Christian.

I agree with you completely that Claire is perhaps the most underutilized character on the show (aside from poor dead Libby), especially given how seemingly central she is to the underlying mythology. The writers never let her do much — I guess the thought was that she wouldn’t (or couldn’t, due to Aaron) be one of the characters who could dash off into the jungle at every crisis. I guess we’ll have to wait for Season 6 to learn more, sigh. As for your last question, hallucinationClaire actually said, “Don’t bring him back!” and I’ve always thought that perhaps this could be referring to Locke/Bentham, not Aaron.

@all: Yes, only my brain is dead. Thanks.

I totally think Claire is alive; Miles gave no indication that she was a ghost, and Sawyer would probably notice the person he’s carting around isn’t corporeal.
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As far as where she is, who knows. Given that we have no idea as to Christian 2.0′s motives, Claire could be anywhere. Given nothing to work off of, I am just assuming she’s hanging out with Christian 2.0 in one of the ancient ruins until Season 6.
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As to Aaron’s specifics – again, not enough to work with. All of the comments that he is “special” could have just been manipulating Claire to get on/off 815; all the ghostly post-815 comments that seem to refer to Aaron have plausible alternate explanations: “You can’t raise him” and “Don’t you dare bring him back” could easily apply to Bentham.
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And as Chad pointed out, Claire’s mother did not die in the flashback, she was merely put into a coma for years. We could ask why she got better in the interim (for you pro-Island voodoo types, the Island did its favorite daughter a favor), or if it was just a narrative evil to inform Jack of his sibling.

@Tom – I agree that Claire is alive, but we’ve seen plenty of evidence of the ghosts being corporeal (Christian holding the baby, Charlie slapping Hurley, Eko *apparently* playing chess with Hurley, though we obviously only saw Hurley move any pieces).
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I think Claire and Christian are playing racquetball in the ruins. Racquetball is fun :)
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I’ve imagined that Aaron is special like Walt – why it’s so imperative that Claire raise him, I’m not sure. Maybe bird-killing only manifests itself in special people who have parent issues… other than Locke.
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From an Island voodoo perspective, I was thinking more that the Island (or Ms. Hawking) kept her in a coma to get Claire on the plane. If she had just gotten better, Claire might not have left.

@Tom Shaw — she did not get better in the interim: Claire’s mom clearly was better before Claire left on the flight. Remember Christian Shepard screaming at Claire’s mom while drunk with Ana Lucia, demanding to see his daughter?
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I gotta believe that Claire is alive, too. Not sure why. But James definitely hit it on the head — Claire/Aaron is/are probably the most interesting characters on the show that we know very little about in terms of their “fit” or importance on the Island. Well, them and Richard Alpert.

@Chad – was Christian yelling at Claire’s mom or her aunt? I thought it was her aunt.
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“Well, them and Richard Alpert.” And Walt! :)

@Chaddogg — I thought that Christian was screaming at Claire’s aunt, not the mother. I remember a scene in the hospital where Claire tells coma-mom that she has decided to give up her baby for adoption, so I assume that the mom was still like that when Claire left for L.A.

I like the idea that Claire is in limbo (maybe Christian is too?) — Miles definitely seemed to react as if something unusual was going on with her, but at the same she didn’t seem dead.

Also, when Christian left with Claire, they clearly left Aaron behind to be found (and presumably to be taken off the island). And now we have Ben saying that Aaron has to return to the island. I have the feeling that Ben would not like Christian’s meddling — yet, it apparently was Christian’s suggestion to move the island. Augh, my brain hurts.

Miles could have been reacting to something like seeing Christian. *shrug*
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If we want yet another freaky connection… http://lostwhispering.blogspot.com/2006/06/autopsy-tape.html Why would the not-dead (resurrected?) daughter of the man who told Claire that she needed to be the one to raise Aaron wake up (resurrect) screaming John Locke’s name?
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Side note… that tape and Ben’s mom showing up at his window on the Island are the 2 things on the show that still creep me out more than anything.

I remember thinking before S4 that Claire needed some more air time, or least some more resolution regarding her purpose there. Guess we’ll have to wait another year for that.

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I tend to believe she’s “dead” – or at least in whatever state Christian currently is. One, she is appearing off-island just like Christian is in the flashforwards. Two, I can’t get past Miles’ response to her in “The Shape of Things to Come”. Claire said something to the effect of, “I’m a little woozy, but I’ll live,” (specifically using the word “live”) and Miles responds, “I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” That’s a classic form of foreshadowing the writers have used in the past. It may have been a red herring, but IMO it’s an indication she’s “dead,” or at least is about to be. Then she wakes up in the forest, see’s Christian and takes off with him (some theories claim she “died” then).

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I’m with profdante in believing “Don’t bring him back!” refers to someone other than Aaron, but I don’t have any reasoning behind that one. For some reason I think it means Ben. Ben’s not permitted to come back to Island, which is why he needs Jack and Co.’s help to get back – the O6 have to “bring” him back. I think Claire’s message is that Jacob doesn’t want him back.

I’ve always assumed that the “dead” people on the island (and off) have something to do with the time-bending properties of the island. Like perhaps Jacob has such control over the warping of space-time that he is able to bring back an instance of a dead person from a time where he/she was alive. We know that more than one “copy” of a time-travelling bunny can exist in the same space. Maybe it’s also possible for a past copy of a person can be brought to the present by a particularly powerful entity. – Anway, I think Claire is ‘dead’.

@antilles13: I think Doc Jensen over at ew,com recently went on record with the theory that “don’t bring him back” (and also “you’re not supposed to raise him”) refers to Locke. I like that idea a lot, and it makes sense in a mind-frak kind of way.
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I want to think that Claire is “dead” like Christian Shepherd is “dead”, and that the island reanimated her body (which is how Sawyer could have carried a seemingly alive her around). However, Christian died off-island and his body was brought to the island and Claire died on-island, and I think that there is something fundamentally important about dead bodies that are brought to the island (which I think we shall see with Locke). ANyway, I have no idea. I can’t wait for tonite.

Does nobody remember the fact that when Jack found his fathers coffin, there was no body inside? Not the same with locke/bentham as his “original” body was still locked up in that box.